Wonderful WEG

Seven years ago when I was a pitiful unread little equestrian blogger, I wrote a post about how I wished I was in Kentucky for the World Equestrian Games. Now we’re one year away from the next US based games, it’s in my home state of North Carolina and I couldn’t stop myself from lighting my credit card on fire and buying tickets. WEG 2018 — here I come!

Truthfully I hope I actually have tickets by the time this blog is posted, because the system has been extremely haphazard. Groups and prices were advertised at the middle of last week before they went on sale to the general public today. Then I noticed they opened them up to NC & SC residents (with no communication prior), but when I looked I saw there was no financial incentive to ask one of my NC family members to buy them for me so I decided to wait.

Then they raised all the ticket prices overnight, opened them up to various equestrian groups and I began to panic because all the day passes were gone. My original plan was to buy day passes for Weds, Thurs, Fri of the 2nd week which would cover most of show jumping, some driving and dressage. But since they sold out before they were ever even offered to the public instead, I got show jumping event passes which are for just show jumping in the 2nd week.

By get, I choose one of their many shop links, gave my credit card and all information and then put the code a friend sent me in the comment field… organized this process was not. Here’s crossing my fingers they don’t cancel my order because I don’t have a NC address anymore (but I do have a NC phone number, that has to count for something right?).

I have family ten minutes from TIEC, which is why I’m lucky enough to be able to attend. They’re intrigued about this giant horse show coming to the back yard of their small town, and have told me that the hotels for the event haven’t broken ground yet. This area of North Carolina is super quaint. To give you an idea, my non-horsey family regularly goes to TIEC for Saturday night classes because it’s great free entertainment. They love the horse complex, because they built a lot of new restaurants with it and fine dining isn’t something you find a ton of in Rutherfordton. For western NC folks, WEG is going to be a huge deal for industry and tourism. I’m super happy about that.

I’m also super happy about being able to go to the games at all. I mean, I hope I’m going… but we’ll see if they let me keep my tickets. Who all is planning to go to WEG? What days are you hoping to attend? I’d love to meet any other fellow bloggers that will be there for the 2nd week!

Won’t be there week 2, but we need to coordinate some sort of effort to meet up. I’ll be there the 12th-16th provided my tickets don’t disappear as well since I used a USEF number that may or may not belong to me… 😉

I bought an all session eventing package! So I will be there the 13th-16th (week 1). It was INSANE yesterday trying to coordinate 7 of us to buy tickets (barn girls trip!). Only two of us (which includes myself) was able to get the discounted rate code to work after multiple attempts. The other 5 waited until Sunday afternoon when the promo code disappeared and the prices went up! Well one girl actually tried ALL day Sunday and couldn’t get the code to work. It was advertised that we had all weekend to purchase at the discounted rate. There were a lot of angry comments on the Facebook site, eeeek! I’m just happy we all got tickets and a few of us just had to pay about $50 bucks more. The cabin is booked, and I cannot wait!!

I’ll probably end up with an All Session Eventing Pass, although a Reining session might happen too. I miss living 30 minutes from TIEC, but luckily still know enough people that somewhere to stay is a non-issue. It’s pretty crazy in the upstate of SC too since it’s so close to the border. My former hospital will actually be the medical providers on site for the entire games.

Man, this whole WEG thing seems like it’s been a hot mess. I haven’t been interested in getting tickets to spectate for a couple of reasons: I might end up going with work and I am not totally confident Bellissimo will actually get any lodging done in time for the event (and I don’t want to end up staying 2 hours away).

I hope I get to go (and see you)! No one from Tryon has contacted anyone who’s sent in a vendor inquiry yet, so who knows.

I’m going!!!! And i’ll be here the whole time 🙂 would love to catch up!!! And also not surprised that they raised the prices without telling anyone. Annoying that they did it but TIEC somehow has a knack for doing weird crap and annoying people in the process

I saw a friend of mine got tickets but has no place to stay, so if yours fall through and she has no hotel, you could probably get her tickets! haha! Hopefully none of that happens and everyone gets to go.
I’m terrible at planning ahead, so it was far beyond my little brain to comprehend getting tickets to something seemingly so far off… But I’m hoping there’s a free live stream!

We had to book a hotel about 30 min from the venue. Everything was either booked or price gauged astronomically (I saw a Days Inn room for almost $1k per night. A DAYS INN! Give me a break, I’ll camp or drive there and back the day of before I do something like that!).

Also, for anyone having difficulties finding a place to stay, check out Rumbling Bald Resort. I got married there last year and it’s a really nice resort about 25 min from Tryon. They are currently advertising vacancies for the WEG.